Keller @ Large: Pence's Costly Decision In Ireland Is Raising Eyebrows
BOSTON (CBS) -- Overseas trips by Vice President Mike Pence tend to be uncontroversial affairs. But not his current stop in Ireland.
His costly decision to stay at a golf resort owned by President Trump - at Mr. Trump's recommendation, and without the benefit of any comped expenses - in Doonbeg, across the country from his most important meeting with Irish officials, is raising eyebrows and ire.
The vice president wanted to make the detour because his family has ties to Doonbeg. "If you think about the bonds that exist between the Irish people and the American people, they have much to do with shared heritage, they have much to do with family," he says.
But in order to meet with Prime minister Leo Varadkar, who refused to come to Doonbeg to meet with the president last June, Pence had to travel by motorcade and Air Force Two to Dublin, 181 miles away, making a return trip to spend a second night at the Trump-owned facility.
It's unclear how much this cost the taxpayers, but the president's visit last spring ran up a $3.6 million tab, much of it going into Trump family coffers.
"While the president is making appearances at his Virginia golf club," complained the DC watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington in a tweet, "the vice president is making appearances as his Ireland golf club. Because the priority is always making Trump money."
Pence waved off the criticism as partisan sniping, saying "we checked it with the State Department, they approved us staying there."
But the story won't help the administration's ethical image problem, highlighted by a Gallup poll last year showing majorities rate Trump's ethical standards below those of the last six presidents, and a plurality even rate him below Richard Nixon.
And that's a problem for the president's re-election hopes. Those numbers are driven by severe distaste for Trump's ethical standards among independents, who broke narrowly for Trump three years ago in part because of his promise to "drain the swamp."
Siphoning public funds into his private businesses doesn't just break that promise - it swamps it.